In the Midwest, #14 Henderson St. upset Longwood in the first round in a pretty strange game - and rode that momentum all the way to the elite 8. While they're on a great run, I think they will struggle against #4 Humboldt, as they are a very deep superclass team.

In the East, #1 St. Edwards came out of the top-notch Heartland. They're very strong on defense, but rely mostly on just one scorer. I see an upset here, though this game could go either way. #7 Bowie St. is 31-1, the low seeding only due to a poor schedule. They've been down for a while, but baseballer has always been a great recruiter, and this is one of his strongest teams.

In the South, I think these might be 2 of the best teams in the whole tourney. #1 St. Mary's will take out #3 Wisconsin - Parkside in a battle of 2 of the strongest teams in recent years. I think this game will be within 10 points due to Parkside's great athleticism, but St. Mary's has better depth.

In the West, Bryant's been really hard to beat this season at 30-2, but that Limestone defense is nasty, and there's some major talent and great coaching there. Bryant has solid ATH and DEF, but doesn't have elite talent, just a lot of good depth. I'll take my CVAC rival Limestone to upset Bryant and take the west.

In the final four, I'll take Humboldt over Bowie, and I'll take St. Mary's over Limestone. I have St. Mary's over Humboldt in the final.

We got crushed by UWP. While I'm not shocked we lost that game, that was definitely not nearly as close as it should have been. Oh well. The good news for us is that I think we will be better next season than we were this season. While we lose 2 starters, we only lose those 2 guys and we've got some very good young guys waiting to take over those spots.

Posted by bbunch on 8/14/2013 11:43:00 PM (view original):Normally I pay a lot of attention to this thread - but I've been super busy. Limestone from the CVAC is the real deal this season. That's all I have to say - haven't checked out the rest of the Iba world lately. Hopefully this weekend I can make some good tourney picks.

not to pretend I'm nostradamus or anything - but I warned yall bout brianxavier's team - he's got a great squad at Limestone.

glad you didn't jinx me bbunch. the title was certainly unexpected... I thought my boys had a chance for a nice run, but Iba has so many good coaches at D2, it seemed like a toss up. I will have to check, but I think I didn't play a single press team - which probably helped. those SOBs always give me trouble. My first round opponent maybe have been press, but otherwise I think I avoided them. great season everyone and congrats to funngun on a great run as well.

edit: I checked and sure enough - no press teams. In fact, every single team I played was M2M defense. I know zone is used less often these days, but it was pretty lucky to avoid pressing teams vs. 6 opponnents.

Posted by brianxavier on 9/5/2013 9:26:00 AM (view original):glad you didn't jinx me bbunch. the title was certainly unexpected... I thought my boys had a chance for a nice run, but Iba has so many good coaches at D2, it seemed like a toss up. I will have to check, but I think I didn't play a single press team - which probably helped. those SOBs always give me trouble. My first round opponent maybe have been press, but otherwise I think I avoided them. great season everyone and congrats to funngun on a great run as well.

edit: I checked and sure enough - no press teams. In fact, every single team I played was M2M defense. I know zone is used less often these days, but it was pretty lucky to avoid pressing teams vs. 6 opponnents.

that's exactly what happened to me in my title run last season, brian. 5 man to man and one zone team on my way to the title. I gameplanned for indivicual matchups and went all the way. This year, lost in the first round to a press team with a very good offense but low defense (and we had 25 turnovers), and they ended up making it to the final 4.